_ CHAPTER LI. A WARNING
A few evenings afterward, when Abel called to know how the ladies had borne the fatigues of the feast, Mrs. Plumer said, with smiles, that it was a kind of fatigue ladies bore without flinching. Miss Grace, who was sitting upon a sofa by the side of Sligo Moultrie, said that it was one of the feasts at which young women especially are supposed to be perfectly happy. She emphasized the last words, and her bright black eyes opened wide upon Mr. Abel Newt, who could not tell if he saw mischievous malice or a secret triumph and sense release in them.
"Oh!" said he, gayly, "it would be too much for me hope to make any ladies, and especially young ladies, perfectly happy."
And he returned Miss Plumer's look with a keen glance masked in merriment.
Sligo Moultrie wagged his foot.
"There now is conscious power!" said Abel, with a laugh, as he pointed at Miss Plumer's companion.
They all laughed, but not very heartily. There appeared to be some meaning lurking in whatever was said; and like all half-concealed meanings, it seemed, perhaps, even more significant than it really was.
Abel was very brilliant, and told more and better stories than usual. Mrs. Plumer listened and laughed, and declared that he was certainly the best company she had met for a long time. Nor were Miss Plumer and Mr. Moultrie reluctant to join the conversation. In fact, Abel was several times surprised by the uncommon spirit of Sligo's replies.
"What is it?" said Abel to himself, with a flash of the black eyes that was startling.
All the evening he felt particularly belligerent toward Sligo Moultrie; and yet a close observer would have discovered no occasion in the conduct of the young man for such a feeling upon Abel's part. Mr. Moultrie sat quietly by the side of Grace Plumer--"as if somehow he had a right to sit there," thought Abel Newt, who resolved to discover if indeed he had a right.
During that visit, however, he had no chance. Moultrie sat persistently, and so did Abel. The clock pointed to eleven, and still they did not move. It was fairly toward midnight when Abel rose to leave, and at the same moment Sligo Moultrie rose also. Abel bade the ladies good-evening, and passed out as if Moultrie were close by him. But that young man remained standing by the sofa upon which Grace Plumer was seated, and said quietly to Abel,
"Good-evening, Newt!"
Grace Plumer looked at him also, with the bright black eyes, and blushed.
For a moment Abel Newt's heart seemed to stand still! An expression of some bitterness must have swept over his face, for Mrs. Plumer stepped toward him, as he stood with his hand upon the door, and said,
"Are you unwell?"
The cloud dissolved in a forced smile.
"No, thank you; not at all!" and he looked surprised, as if he could not imagine why any one should think so.
He did not wait longer, and the next moment was in the street.
Mrs. Plumer also left the room almost immediately after his departure. Sligo Moultrie seated himself by his companion.
"My dear Grace, did you see that look?"
"Yes."
"He suspects the truth," returned Sligo Moultrie; and he might have added more, but that his lips at that instant were otherwise engaged.
Abel more than suspected the truth. He was sure of it, and the certainty made him desperate. He had risked so much upon the game! He had been so confident! As he half ran along the street he passed many things rapidly in his mind. He was like a seaman in doubtful waters, and the breeze was swelling into a gale.
Turning out of Broadway he ran quickly to his door, opened it, and leaped up stairs.
To his great surprise his lamp was lighted and a man was sitting reading quietly at his table. As Abel entered his visitor closed his book and looked up.
"Why, Uncle Lawrence," said the young man, "you have a genius for surprises! What on earth are you doing in my room?"
His uncle said, only half smiling,
"Abel, we are both bachelors, and bachelors have no hours. I want to talk with you."
Abel looked at his guest uneasily; but he put down his hat and lighted a cigar; then seated himself, almost defiantly, opposite his uncle, with the table between them.
"Now, Sir; what is it?"
Lawrence Newt paused a moment, while the young man still calmly puffed the smoke from his mouth, and calmly regarded his uncle.
"Abel, you are not a fool. You know the inevitable results of certain courses. I want to fortify your knowledge by my experience. I understand all the temptations and excitements that carry you along. But I don't like your looks, Abel; and I don't like the looks of other people when they speak of you and your father. Remember, we are of the same blood. Heaven knows its own mysteries! Your father and I were sons of one woman. That is a tie which we can neither of us escape, if we wanted to. Why should you ruin yourself?"
"Did you come to propose any thing for me to do, Sir, or only to inform me that you considered me a reprobate?" asked Abel, half-sneeringly, the smoke rising from his mouth.
Lawrence Newt did not answer.
"I am like other young men," continued Abel. "I am fond of living well, of a good horse, of a pretty woman. I drink my glass, and I am not afraid of a card. Really, Uncle Lawrence, I see no such profound sin or shame in it all, so long as I honestly pay the scot. Do I cheat at cards? Do I lie in the gutters?"
"No!" answered Lawrence.
"Do I steal?"
"Not that I know," said the other.
"Please, Uncle Lawrence, what do you mean, then?"
"I mean the way, the spirit in which you do things. If you are not conscious of it, how can I make you? I can not say more than I have. I came merely--"
"As a handwriting upon the wall, Uncle Lawrence?"
Lawrence Newt rose and stood a little back from the table.
"Yes, if you choose, as a handwriting on the wall. Abel, when the prodigal son
came to himself, he rose and went to his father. I came to ask you to return to yourself."
"From these husks, Sir?" asked Abel, as he looked around his luxurious rooms, his eye falling last upon the French print of Lucille, fresh from the bath.
Lawrence Newt looked at his nephew with profound gravity. The young man lay back in his chair, lightly holding his cigar, and carelessly following the smoke with his eye. The beauty and intelligence of his face, the indolent grace of his person, seen in the soft light of the lamp, and set like a picture in the voluptuous refinement of the room, touched the imagination and the heart of the older man. There was a look of earnest, yearning entreaty in his eyes as he said,
"Abel, you remember Milton's Comus?"
The young man bowed.
"Do you think the revelers were happy?"
Abel smiled, but did not answer. But after a few minutes he said, with a smile,
"I was not there."
"You
are there," answered Lawrence Newt, with uplifted finger, and in a voice so sad and clear that Abel started.
The two men looked at each other silently for a few moments.
"Good-night, Abel."
"Good-night, Uncle Lawrence."
The door closed behind the older man. Abel sat in his chair, intently thinking. His uncle's words rang in his memory. But as he recalled the tone, the raised finger, the mien, with which they had been spoken, the young man looked around him, and seemed half startled and frightened by the stillness, and awe-struck by the midnight hour. He moved his head rapidly and arose, like a person trying to rouse himself from sleep or nightmare. Passing the mirror, he involuntarily started at the haggard paleness of his face under the clustering black hair. He was trying to shake something off. He went uneasily about the room until he had lighted a match, and a candle, with which he went into the next room, still half-looking over his shoulder, as if fearing that something dogged him. He opened the closet where he kept his wine. He restlessly filled a large glass and poured it down his throat--not as if he were drinking, but as if he were taking an antidote. He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and half-smiled a sickly smile.
But still his eyes wandered nervously to the spot in which his uncle had stood; still he seemed to fear that he should see a ghostly figure standing there and pointing at him; should see himself, in some phantom counterpart, sitting in the chair. His eyes opened as if he were listening intently. For in the midnight he thought he heard, in that dim light he thought he saw, the Prophet and the King. He did not remember more the words his uncle had spoken. But he heard only, "Thou art the man! Thou art the man!"
And all night long, as he dreamed or restlessly awoke, he heard the same words, spoken as if with finger pointed--"Thou art the man! Thou art the man!" _